Finding myself sprawled across a cool, concrete floor, head pounding, pulsating, blood loudly rushing throughout, heartbeat irritatingly clamorous and obvious, doing anything but helping my already unbearable, incapacitating headache, I sat up. My headache, steadily teetering me into insanity, making thinking excessively difficult, I glanced around, attempting to recall where I was, when I was, how I even got into this situation and place at all. I was in a hallway, wide enough to fit two people shoulder to shoulder. I peered in front of myself to the end of this hall, to find a door. Behind me, was just a painted white brick wall, uniform with the rest of the hallway. This place was eerie, familiar somehow, it felt otherworldly and sinister. It was dimly lit, my eyes never fully adjusted
Scratching my aching head, I stood up, and ventured to this door gingerly, ignoring the sound of my pulse, the sound of blood rushing through my head. I shivered, not being able to brush the feeling of being watched by someone, or something, by an entity I couldn’t see, yet felt like it was an arm’s length away. My primal instincts told me to run, told me someone or something was near, lurking and stalking. I opened the door, with no other way out of this chilling hallway. The room I found myself in was dim as the hall, a glass panel to the left, illuminated by a green light, making the whole room barely visible. Reminiscences of a once inhabited building lay in this spacious room, a counter, dusty and old, lay in the room, with rusty stools in front of it. But, the dust was agitated, like someone was in this room recently and frequently. The AC was off, so it couldn’t have been that.
Feeling paranoid, anxious, yet curious, I walked forward towards this counter, in front of the door, to see beyond this counter. I sat, and studied the surroundings. There was a cash register to the left of the stools, beyond the counter, stoves, fridges and deep fryers still full of cooking oil sat, unintended and ignored. This abandoned, ignored, obscure restaurant stunk of forgotten moldy food, decomposed and disgusting. The feeling of eyes watching me, studying me was stronger than ever here, I felt, no I knew I was being watched, I couldn’t brush it off anymore. Though I was paranoid, though my gut told me better, I still explored.
Curiously, I decided to walk into the kitchen, to the left, past the deep fryers, past what is visible from simply the counter, there was a window outside, for a drive through. It was illuminated by purple light and the full moon, a gust of wind, cool, otherwise unrefreshing came in through one of the windows, air that didn’t stink of mold hit my nose. This place, abandoned, made a chill in my spine, it made me twitch with anxiety. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here, deep down, I felt as if a seemingly benevolent yet corrupt, dangerous being was there too, but I pushed that thought down, I just thought it was just me being anxious, I thought it was because this place was eerie.
I still didn’t remember where exactly I was, how I got there, when I got there. I was less disoriented then,but not enough for logic to fully set in. I had goosebumps, partially from the cold, partially from feeling another, falsely benevolent presence in this place. Adrenaline coursed through my veins preparing me to run, even fight if I absolutely had to, my gut was telling me to run, run as quickly as possible, escape whatever danger was there. I went into the dinning area, the tables were round, small, the lights above, flickering on and off, finally creating some sort of visibility that didn’t require straining of the eyes or studying. A figure in the corner, almost overlooked, stood in the corner, by the door. It was short, stout and threatening. It stood in the darkest corner, making a silhouette of itself. I felt its eyes piercing me, observing me, then I realized, that’s what I knew was making me feel not alone. I finally knew what was also there. I checked for my phone in my pockets, I didn’t have time to find it, fish it out of one of them, if even one was there at all.
It crept towards me, I felt as if I was being pulled out of my body, backwards and upwards, I felt like I was both inside, controlling my body and being outside my body, floating in the air at once. My anxiety rose, this creature, human looking enough to blend into a group, but still had qualities of being inhuman that were off putting, unnatural and creepy. The thing walked towards me, each step unnatural, its legs stiff as if it didn’t quite know how to walk yet. Its smile was threatening, eerie, almost well meaning. It spoke. When it spoke, the voice sounded crackly, the voice crocked out of it as if it wasn’t used for centuries. It’s voice echoing throughout this anxiety inducing building. Echoed despite the furniture, implying other rooms in this building. It was very announced, its pronunciations perfect, causing an uncanny valley feel to its speaking style. I shook, walked back slowly, hands in the air, unthreatening. Maybe then this otherworldly thing would not hurt me, would not threaten me.
“Do you know where you are?” the thing asked. Giggling to itself, giddily and demeaningly. Immediately after it spoke, I disliked it more than I already did. If it were a real person, I would with no doubt attack it. I
“N-n-n-o.” I stammered my response, scared. I was in a place, in the dark, not knowing anything or anyone. I was in a place I knew I never had been in yet it felt so eerily familiar, as if I had seen it through a dream.
It walked forward, into the light, into visibility. Its hair was spiked and red, face was pure white, nose was perfectly round and paint gave it a permanent smile. It moved robotically, it was too still when it stood, each step was identical to the last, it’s speech unnatural and inhumanly uniform as if it was programmed into it. Yet, it was more human than any robot can be.
“You’re in my house now, on my turf.” It motioned around, proud that it acquired this place. The thing twitched as if it glitched, it stared at me. “You’ll know this place soon.” It said immediately after, not in a comforting way, in a matter of fact way when I didn’t respond, only watched it, it kept talking “You’re confused, disoriented? Do you have a headache?”
“How do you know?” I said, attempting to mask my startlement, confusion, discomfort trying to sound like I wasn’t scared of this thing, like I wasn’t dazed nor surprised by this thing. I tried denying what it was correct about, to throw it off, maybe stopping it from doing whatever plan it had in mind.
“Darling, put off the act. You’re not the first one here. You won’t be the last.” It reacted seeing right through my act. If it weren’t for its inhuman qualities, I would imagine it sounded annoyed.
“Look. What are you? And what do you want? Where am I?” I ask, irritated from being tired, confused, being on edge and creeped out by whatever this building is. The eerie feeling of this building, the feeling of being threatened by this thing only magnifies the more I’m in here.
As if answering my question of what it was, it turned around, the back opened. Inside, there was electronics, controlling it, a human hooked into the hardwiring, emaciated and weak, yet not dying or dead. The human, he was suffering, too weak to sob, too weak to fight, to escape. He was bruised, hit, cut, tortured and much more. If he were to be able to, he would be sobbing, screaming out in pain.
“I’ll care to explain…” it started “…The man stuffed in me, well, he’s a minion. Stuck in me, he’s forced to do tasks I’m unwilling to do. He has seen countless hours of suffering, death, anguish and immense pain, physical and emotional, amongst many things. It’s like hell for him. Hell for anyone who’s not electronic like me. I power his body, he powers me, it’s a symbiotic relationship.”
It sunk in, I could be here because I could be one of them, one of the people suffering, admittedly, I’m a bad person. He’s actually benevolent, no towards people like me, who have only hurt people, only destroyed other’s lives. I stumbled backwards, away from this thing. My mind ran wild, “are you going to do the same to me?” I asked, nervousness growing in my voice, not knowing this thing’s intent. But, I could gather, it could give me a well deserved punishment, a rude awakening “A-a-m I-I g-going t-o be in an an-an-an-animatronic too?” I barely spat out the question as it turned around to face me. I knew this could be fate for me, but I just couldn’t accept this. I would never.
Logic finally came to my tired mind, I should’ve left half a conversation ago. I felt stupid as I made my way to the door out. The thing watched, it didn’t try to stop me. It only chuckled as I realized I was stuck. Knowing I had no way out. “This could be fate. Could not be fate. But, you have to make a deal with me.” I could only nod. “As long as you serve me, I won’t hurt you, okay?” It made a shallow deal, no fascists, easily broken with no consequence.
I contemplated, but I ended up saying yes to his deal. It’s a matter of less or more suffering if you really think about it. Quickly after, I felt woozy, nauseous, I felt dizzy and light headed. Soon, I would be passed out. It chucked, half humanly. “Things are going to plan.” It had said to someone out of my line of sight in reaction to me losing consciousness.
I had a dream that night, a flashback of before I was there, stuck. I was drinking whisky, drunk out of my mind, before promptly blacking out. The sleep I had was shit, but I remember dreaming about an omnipotent creature godlike, but evil. The devil if he were to replace god.
I awoke, next to the door, the restaurant part of this building was disheveled looking in the daylight. When I looked closely I tried looking for the source of natural light but couldn’t see any natural light anywhere at all. The tables were all full of moldy food, partially eaten and rotting. The pungent nauseating smell of rotting flesh hit my nose, it smelt as if it were being burnt. I craned my neck, another animatronic. Its features were all twisted, twirled around each other, and seemed to melt into each other as if you were to swirl around a face in photoshop. It watched over me in curiosity as I woke up before speaking.
“A new resident. You must’ve met the master.” It exclaimed.
“The clown looking animatronic?” I guessed.
“Correct.” Its voice is eerily cheery. It’s voice was almost human, but not quite. It’s like the uncanny valley. Almost human, but not human enough for it to be creepy, for it to be unsettling.
It led me to a door I didn’t realize was there in my panicked, hung over state, especially with it being dark and me being confused. When the door opened, I could smell the start of molding under the carpets. When I was walking down this hall, following this not so scary, but still unsettling and creepy animatronic, I felt moistness under my feet from the carpet. Everything in this damned building seemed to repeat itself over and over, teetering me to insanity. I never shook the feeling of being watched whilst in this place. It never failed to make me feel creeped out.
There were doors to either side of us, the carpet a repeating pattern. It seemed like a generic hotel that everyone had stayed at with their parents when they were a toddler and had vague memories of, but prominent enough to recognize if you were to step into the same hotel. The lightbulbs were dim, some went out completely, other’s flickering. This hallway seemed never ending. Every few doors, I would hear a scream from behind one of them, in the presumed hallway. Whenever I jumped at the sound, startled, the animatronic would look back and repeat the line “Don’t worry. It’s normal.”
Though, it sounded convincing, but with how painful the screams had sounded, even with the little I have gained already, I knew that it wasn’t normal for people to scream in that way, terrified, in pain, fighting for their life, screaming for help. I swallowed the fear rising in my throat, I held back the curiosity, the urge to question whatever was going on for I knew I just needed a way out of this place.
After a good 5 minutes of walking, I got my own hotel room. It was small, claustrophobic in nature, I sat on the bed directly across from it. This room was illuminated by a window, too small to climb out of, it showed the backs of buildings, where no one ever was, so even if I tried, I couldn’t even call for help. Unlucky for me, I didn’t even have my phone on me, it got stolen. Soon after, the headmaster came into the room, the one that appeared as a clown.
We had a long discussion, its name is Alaric. It explains how it runs a business where it and its team runs a business where the people they took were people who were ruthless in the past to others, who had no desire in changing their ways and planned on continuing hurting people in the future. The people there were all evil. They ran a business where they would run a simulation for these people, simulating the distress and pain they have caused others from the harmed people’s point of views. A sort of hell on earth, most people would change for the better knowing hell was way worse than this. Quick side note, Lucifer and God are not enemies, they are neutral, indifferent to each other, but have the same goals as each other. If they were really enemies, why else would god help send the evil souls to hell thus helping Lucifer? Now, they made a deal with both God and Lucifer, if they could change the evil people, from being destined to go to hell, to being destined to going to heaven, they would get benefits from above and below. It couldn’t specify what exactly though.
After weeks of going through hell on earth, I’ve finally changed. I made it out alive, though this experience has made me go through hell, I’ve come out a better person. So, if you find yourself in a liminal space, eerie and familiar, brace yourself.